


The Slowest Execution Ever

by Poker



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Happenings in Castle Heterodyne pre Agatha, It’s trying to kill us why do we need a log, Keeper does not want to be here, Keeper is tired of this, Moloch the naive newbie, Yuletide Spark Exchange- Fic gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poker/pseuds/Poker
Summary: Keeper is not sure how he got stuck with keeping the log. It’s broken down Castle Heterodyne, might as well write “trying to kill us, not dead yet” on every page.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	The Slowest Execution Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sociopathbrony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sociopathbrony/gifts).



> This is a gift for the fic exchange! I hope you enjoy this, Sociopathbrony, I ended up focusing on the second prompt.
> 
> Swearing warning, as well as brief mentions of violence.

[This was recovered from the rubble after clean up. The first part of the log was lost, but the rest contains an informative if… colorful depiction of those living in Castle Heterodyne. The front of it is rather badly burned, and seeps green smoke. log keeper not located.]  
_We know exactly who the log keeper was! They don’t even answer to anything but Keeper! Everyone knows it them! But ask them about it and they look at you like you’re insane!_

[Begin Log]

**Day Far Too Many, do I really have to keep track of these? We’re in here until we die, who cares.**

**Fine. It’s Day 240 for me.**

So Willis up and died for the fourth time. Big bang like every other, reactivated those tiger bots to try and fight Mittelmind. 

Again.

This is the second time. And the second time he’s died. Pretty sure the Castle thinks it’s hysterical. Didn’t care much, but Gregor decided to stick me with the log, to ‘chronicle the restoration of a something something sentient something something castle’. 

Apparently guarding the door to the unimaginable horror portal that killed most of us before we barricaded it in this room isn’t enough. 

Would’ve shoved this job off on the other guard, but Willis convinced him death popped off the collars. So now he’s a goner too.

I don’t know why he believed Willis, the man is still stuck here after four deaths.

Willis will be back soon enough, dunno bout the other guy. If not, I might consider trying to barter with a horror to speed it up a little.

Actually no, I don’t like him that much. But now I’m bored and all I have to do is write in this book. It’s that or listen to the Castle’s insane giggling from down the hallway.

Just in case the castle kills me somehow, I’m gonna jot down my side. One of the few minions here, absolute joy that is. Gerald encourages ‘emotional expression’, says it stops people from going on a maniac spree.

Pretty sure he’s using it for blackmail though.

Long story short, when your boss goes down for trying to make venomous platypus hybrids, the Baron wants to see what he does in an actual lab. But nobody cares about the minions who had to kidnap all those humans, bunch of bullshit about ‘empathy’ and ‘you had a choice’ and ‘thats a crime in every jurisdiction’. 

So I got shipped off to a creepy murderous castle.

Being Head minion is actually the safest job because no one wants to be elected head minion if the old guy dies. Issue is, you tend to go down with the ship.

It was them or me. Last person with the job became a platypus because they said no. But everyone expects the Sparks to be crazy, so rules get a bit wonky when it comes to the minions who carry out the real nasty business. So the Baron usually shoves a bunch of us in here to curb ‘bad habits’ in the Sparks when they start whining about needing more people to assist in the boring stuff.

Whatever. The door is starting to moan so I’m going to go get my shovel before it gets uppity again.

**Day Whatever. Time is a construct.**

STOP STEALING MY ORGANS.

WE ALL KNOW IT’S YOU DIAZ.

**Day the Castle started to sing creepy nursery rhymes over and over.**

So Diaz survived, but is currently having a big feud with Mittelmind over stealing the robot’s pancreas. Last saw the asshole hanging from one of the likely inactive chandeliers.

In my day we took our spontaneous organ donations with a lot less hysterics. You beat em off, stitch yourself up, and get on with your business. Sparks, honestly, so dramatic when they’re the target.

My stomach hurts like hell though, he took a good chunk of my liver before I slammed the book into his head. Gerald slept right through it like the bastard he is. Though I think I heard giggling from his bunk, the bastard, so maybe that’s wrong.

Had to go to Mezzasalma to get it stitched, and I’m pretty sure he took another sliver when I blinked.

He told me to rest up and then started laughing. No one has gotten sleep for days because the Castle decided to alternate screaming and creepy lullabies as it’s new favorite hobby. It’s actually kind of nostalgic.

Loud. But kind of nostalgic.

Least I get to sit down, one of the girls had a kidney removed and then had to deal with the kraken in the cistern. She survived. Nearly drowned, but was right as rain after one of the crazies gave her a shot that caused water to leak out of her skin.

Granted, she started giggling along to the Castle’s screaming. But that could just be the emotional breakdown happening. People are so delicate when it comes to near death these days

So the Kraken’s dealt with. The door’s pretty quiet so far. I’m pretty sure the Castle can’t come over here to my post so at least I don’t have to deal with the floor collapsing or whatever demented ideas pops into its ?head?.

At least 95% certain.

I actually asked the nearest shard once and it started to maniacally cackle. So it might also be a trap to lure us into a false sense of security for our gory deaths.

Which is pretty much every Tuesday.

[What follows is increasingly intricate games of tic-tac-toe. Along with some scribbled writing along the margin that’s been splattered in ooze the same shade as the smoke that seeps out from under the cover.]

-Right So it was emotional bitch day again. It’s mostly for the minion types, the Sparks are dramatic little shits every day. Mostly we get drunk off the lab grade ethanol, fight the kitchen for some toast, and hole up in our bunks.

Managed to bribe Jeffrey to take my post, the unlucky bastard. So I get to actually nurse the hangover and moan with the rest of them.

Gerald has told me that he trusts me, the idiot. I would gleefully trade him to Castle in return for one of my Mom’s fried cream pastries. 

But the Castle doesn’t have any, so I guess that option is off the table for now.

Lucky for him.

And if he really liked me, he’d stop waking up at night and thumping around the bedroom. The man insists he doesn’t, but I’ve seen him watching me sleep. 

Weirdo.

Didn’t even get to bitch before Snaug threw us out of the room for arguing. So then I gotta take the route all the way back still tipsy. I think it was my best showing on the bottomless pit yet.

Possibly because the Castle thought spinning me in circles until my brains pushed through my skull was a more fun idea. I ended up puking and skedaddling while that shard angrily screamed about the state of the carpet.

Note to self, find a new route.

Fuck, I think the door is growling. I’m going to go deal wit———-

[Blood splatters the page here. Some is suspiciously green.]

So we found Willis.

Willis was a skeletal monster attempting to unleash hell on us by destroying the door, but hey. 

We found him. 

I’m pretty sure he tried talking to us, but my ears started bleeding, so we had to improv a bit. You hear one Spark monologue, you hear them all.

So I’m hitting the damn thing with a shovel while trying to lean on the door, the Castle is scoring our fight like a damn pageant judge looking at beetlecows, and Mittelmind comes running up and says “what’s wrong?”

Maybe the giant first skeleton trying to eat/eviscerate me?

Turns out, he was useless because he immediately started cackling about skeletal Hell spiders and then pulled in Diaz and Mezzasalma when they showed up.

If they build a demon spider, I’m leaving. I don’t care if the damn collar kills me. 

No.

Slammed the shovel into the base of the neck and managed to pop the skull off when it lunged for my stomach bandages. 

Damn thing shredded my coat front too. This was my favorite coat, took me through five years of experiments. I’m going to miss the thing, till I can sew it up nice again.

But, fine, log the event ‘properly’. 

Whompf, fire out. The Sparks were so disappointed because all of them crave chaos like the madmen they are. Ended up having to claim the skull as a trophy of war to keep it away but they got the rest of the body. 

So now I’m going to have a good reason to toss that into the cistern. Not like I have anything else to do but this and the evil door.

Shoved the skull into a box and put it under Gerald’s bed. That’ll teach him to ignore me.

Tiktoffen poked around a bit before leaving. Still pretending he isn’t a spy. Everyone fucking knows you’re a spy, stop pretending your interest in the Castle is purely academic. I’m pretty sure even the damn building knows you have some secret plan to take it over.

[A note from Lady Agatha Heterodyne: Did everyone know but me?? 

The answer is yes, apparently.]

The downside is that now I can’t give the log book back because Willis didn’t technically die this time. 

Yay. Now I’m stuck with this giant book and Sparks bugging me to write more fancy about Castle events (fuck OFF Tiktoffen).

**Day After Willis Returned**

The skull is now watching Gerald while/when he ?sleeps? How the tables turn. It’s got some kind of teleportation on it considering it escaped the box and now lurks at the head of the bed.

Nothing much today otherwise. 

Well, I think an excavation team nearly got crushed when they tried to look at the catacombs. The scout barely outran the rocks in time. The girl who nearly drowned is fussing over him in some kind of medbay.

That’s pretty much the entire day.

Don’t know why I have to keep the log if the Sparks are just gonna fuss about my writing. I don’t even want it!

Goddamnit, I think Gerald is watching me again. He’s gone from kind of nice to creepy real fast.

**Right it’s been three hours. Do I still have to write the time?**

There’s a fucking cult again. Goddamnit, I thought we dealt with this two weeks ago. Pretty sure it’s Mittelmind fucking around again, Diaz looked even more dramatic than usual.

Scout guy started yelling because the girl wanted to sacrifice him to the castle because he defied the natural order by fleeing what should have killed him.

(Also shut up about wasting medicine, Tiktoffen, everyone knows you should have helped and sacrificing people to the Castle will not make it like you better. It’s not a dog, damnit, it’s a nightmare trying to eat our souls).

Then it turned out five others had joined the stupid group and were worshipping the Castle as a god. Unfortunately, they were unable to feed Gerald to it (he insists we came in just in time but one of the cultists were gibbering in the corner) before we arrived.

Cultists are kept in holding cells. We’re gonna try yet again to see if the Baron will take them out. But most likely, they’re going to Mittelmind, the poor bastards.

It’s not the cult part that’s the issue. The issue is that being discovered somehow became an invitation to set up sacrifices to the Castle. 

The Castle gets enough blood. It doesn’t need any help.

That wing of the building thought what it could see was hilarious. How did the Heterodyne’s live with the damn thing?

I’m finishing this log here. I already had to write two logs in one day. Gonna catch a nap before I go back to guarding the door.

**Fresh Meat Arrival Day. Congrats, Welcome to Hell**

Only one newbie this time. Whole welcoming committee went smoothly. Tour (by Tiktoffen because he literally can’t handle other people doing the tours. Why hasn’t he gone to Mittelmind yet?), set up jobs which is easy because newbie gets the kitchen. And restructuring of wills.

Being the newbie, he is now the designated avenger in case of traumatic death (unfair homicide/Castle being even more unreasonable though we don’t know how to define that/and Spark experimentation though they don’t know about that part). Also being the newbie, he promptly asked why the hell we were doing that.

No one else wants to do it but we don’t want a repeat of Jack.

I’ve never known a Jack, but at this point, everyone knows the story that happens ‘just before you got here’.

Story goes that Jack fell afoul of an old Heterodyne experiment. Story gets a little varied here, but I’m a fan of the tried and true flesh eating acid.

Ends up dying horrendously. Everyone goes along with their business until other people start finding mysterious acid pools. Three deaths before one of the weirdos tried to contact the afterlife and found out Jack was murdered and was angry no one avenged him.

So they pushed the murderer into the cistern and got along with their business. No more issues.

Gerald has told me to stop scaring the newbies with stories of past deaths. A, it’s a learning experience and B. I thought this was a slow execution sentence via maniacal building not daycare.

I don’t even think Moloch minded other than getting even paler. It’s like his brain experienced so much anxiety it said fuck this and refuses to comprehend anything that isn’t a cataclysmic threat.

Either he dies or goes nuts within six weeks. 

Maybe he’ll figure it out.

But he just cooked a sponge for dinner because Sanaa dropped by to say hello so I have my money on a very tragic death.

**That day or whatever.**

Yes Moloch, we all know about the evil Spark that got you into this mess. Nobody cares. Save it for the designated feelings sessions because everyone else has Sparks to bitch about.

The Sparks get whiny if we do it in front of them too often.

**are you kidding me.**

224\. Current number of times that Moloch has insisted he really isn’t a minion for this Spark, no, really.

**I’m gonna kill him.**

If I don’t get to bitch about platypuses, nobody else gets free reign either. The other minions also got stuff to bitch about, (one goes absolutely mental if you mention mouth pipettes).

**Finally something new.**

The skull ate Gerald. I’d feel a little more mournful if the leftovers didn’t start melting. I don’t know what the hell that is, but it probably wasn’t Gerald.

Probably. I’m not the type to pry into other minions having random mutations.

Moloch just left as soon as he saw the mess. Smart man. And he’s my new bunkmate. Hopefully he rooms better than he cooks.

You can usually nudge the Sparks and they’ll happily clean it in return for taking the weird goo of the week.

Chucked the skull in the catacombs. The catacombs thanked me. Pretty sure it’s planning to mount the skull on the wall. 

Not. My. Problem.

Moloch cooked sponges again today. I’m pretty sure Diaz ate one. That’s why he apparently has to have three stomachs.

Day was boring. Had to hit the door again. I think the skull business riled it up.

It growled again. I have to go.

Maybe I can get Moloch to keep the log instead?

**Couple weeks later, don’t see why I have to update this when nothing happens**

New faker and new prisoner. Now we get to clean up the mess again.

Tiktoffen is shady. As usual.

Ugh, maybe this time we’ll get a real one. Haven’t been able to send my mom a letter in ages and she hasn’t sent any back either.

Also fuck off Jeff. Everyone knows you’ve been raiding the supplies. Winston is going to kill you if you eat the spice cookies he pays to have smuggled in, again.

People are screaming. Did one of the Sparks smuggle something in again? I’m not dealing with that again, last time it was a garbage crocodile that took off my boot while I was hauling ass away.

Gonna stay by the door. Hopefully it’s no big deal.

**Hangover day.**

I think I tried to brawl with a Jäger while drunk. 

Fuck this.

[End log. See about stealing the new notebook Keeper carries? They say it’s for nostalgia but refuses to admit what the nostalgia is about.]

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are appreciated! I kinda like Keeper, they’re like a far more cynical and irritable Moloch.
> 
> (No, they didn’t get their new book. Keeper lived in a death castle, they have acute paranoia).


End file.
